Richard Desmond: I want to buy The Sun

Richard Desmond would like to buy The Sun and believes he could run it better than its current owner, Rupert Murdoch. I believe that's what we'd call a definition of chutzpah.

Despite the fact that The Sun is not for sale, Desmond told this morning's Radio 4 Today programme that he had the money and the willingness to take it on.

Desmond said: "We would run it in a different manner, which would be more efficient in today's marketplace."

Given that he already owns two popular national titles - the Daily Express and the Daily Star - he would obviously face a rather high competition hurdle.

Then again, we shouldn't take him too seriously. Surely, he is having a laugh. He was cagey throughout the BBC interview. After agreeing that "consolidation has to happen" in the newspaper industry, he was asked which paper he would like to acquire.

"It's pretty obvious," he replied. So the interviewer, Nick Cosgrove, first suggested the Daily Mirror. "Definitely not", said Desmond. He said exactly the same when the Daily Telegraph was suggested as a possible target.

But when asked about The Sun, he replied: "Work it out for yourself." He would not be drawn on whether he had spoken to Murdoch about the idea, merely saying: "I talk to him about many things."

He was eager to speak about the success of his papers and magazines, but he didn't get much of an airing for that.

The Daily Star has enjoyed circulation rises for many months. It sold 823,000 in April, up just a little on a year ago, but even a flat performance is against the general downward trend.

Desmond mused that the Star would soon overtake the Mirror in terms of readership, though there is still a wide margin between the two titles.

As for the Express, its sales have been anything but good. At an average sale of 665,000 copies a day, it has fallen steadily since Desmond acquired it more than 10 years ago. Both titles are run on a shoestring.

Desmond chose to stress instead that his OK! magazine has been performing well. Even so, it has come at a cost. According to a report in the New York Post, the money spent getting OK! off the ground in the US qualifies it as "the most expensive magazine launch in the history of American publishing."

The paper quotes figures from the latest filing to Companies House by Desmond's Northern & Shell (N&S) parent company.

The filing reveals that the total losses since OK!'s launch in August 2005 totalled $175.7m (£120m). With 223 issues published up until December 2009, that means it lost what the Post calls "a jaw-dropping $787,000 (£538,000) per issue."

The paper says the financial results, for the year ended 2009, claim the magazine lost only £540,000 last year, but "a rather expensive subscription marketing operation appears to have been moved off the books into a separate American corporation."

There were also amended numbers for 2008 that revealed the existence of substantial "administrative costs". Initially, N&S said its American operation has lost about $20.8m (£14.2m). But the revised statement includes administrative expenses of $68.5m (£46.8m), which pushed the US losses for 2008 alone to $71.8m (£49m).

In an emailed statement to the Post, the N&S group editorial director, Paul Ashford, said doesn't consider the $175m as a loss. See it instead as "invested" cash.

He wrote: "To clarify, we haven't 'lost' $175m, as you stated, but are proud to have invested $175m in the magazine over time. This is certainly a suitable amount for a company like ours, with not only the means to do so, but a continued belief in its US product that is now the eighth-best selling magazine [on news stands] in the US."

The paper reports the truth of that claim. Ad pages for OK! in the first five months of this year are up 26.9%, according to Media Industry Newsletter.